Litke came back from Germany with a Super Beetle, a 1600cc with loud pipes and oversized tires. We were on the same team of instructors at the Fort Ord Drivers School. Our office was connected to one of the big classrooms in a drafty old pre-WWII shop building...the last in a row across the street from the monster motor pool where our trucks were parked. Just across the apron on the north side of our shop was the post incenerator where the local police and sheriffs offices burned up all the confiscated dope once a month. Not germaine to the story but a point of interest. We parked on the north edge of the apron, backed in facing the office, about forty feet from the door. I was driving a 1969 GTO at the time and it inspired more than one of the other instructors to upgrade their family transport. Litke and I ribbed each other about racing our cars...Super Beetle vs GTO...heheh. One of the ways we bugged each other was this...if I got to work and Litke was already parked there, I would back in near him and then jump on the goat, smoking the rear tires for just a few feet then back back into my parking place. If I got there first, he would try the same thing...with much less impressive results.
Then one day, Litke came to work with a new car. He had gone out and bought a new Mercury Comet Cyclone. A little body with a very healthy Cleveland 351 engine (or whatever cubes Merc said it was, it was still the Ford 351). And low and behold, we got to work at the same time...I know he was sandbaggin' down the block waiting for me to show up. When I pulled into my parking place I noticed the Comet behind me but I didn't know who it was until he backed in next to me and started revving up his motor. I was impressed...it was a nice little car and they had a FAST reputation. So I revved back at him. So there we sat, backed into our parking places...facing south...about thirty feet from the office door...aimed right at the bosses window...the adrenaline flowing. We both did our traditional burn-out...this time Litke's effort was very impressive...and between the two of us, we created a huge cloud of smoke, moved forward about ten feet...then backed into our parking places. We were laughing like teenie-boppers when we got out of our cars, but quit immediately upon sighting the MP car with lights-a-flashing.
The MP was a buck sergeant, as were Litke and I, but he had the authority and was a buttnose. He lectured us at length about the example we set, the safety issues, the conduct unbecoming, etc, etc, etc. His intent was to write us a ticket for drag racing (a ticket like that could lose a fellow his license for a while). When he told us that, Litke lost it. He started choking back but finally exploded into raucous laughter. That didn't improve the MPs mood any. But the other instructors, who had gathered at a respectable distance, joined in and began asking Litke and me questions about our race...for the benefit of the MP...like, "Where was the finish line, Litke?" or things like that. I told the MP that he would look "stupider" than us if he wrote that one. He was near exploding himself, but not with laughter, I'd guess. Finally my boss, an imposing E7, got involved. He dispersed the other instructors then worked on difusing the situation. After some discussion and a promise to deal with us severely, the MP let us off with a warning. We then got listen to another lecture from our boss, one we paid more attention to. When he was done chewing on us, our boss, the beloved Macho-man, looked at the cars and the space between them and the office...then he smiled and said, "If he'd had about five more feet I think that little Comet would have got you, Daddy."
That was the last of our formal burn outs. The MPs always seemed to have a car around the shops when we got to work and when we got off. I noticed them hanging around the incinerator, sort of looking like they were on official business...or sitting up the hill in the parking lot for the tire turn-in building. It was months before they gave up on us. All for the shortest drag race ever.